


Exposure

by bonehandledknife (ladywinter), Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)



Series: The Mountains Are The Same [10]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Worldbuilding, brief morsov mention, implied unnamed slit cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-14 22:38:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4582761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywinter/pseuds/bonehandledknife, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/Primarybufferpanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exposure: Empty space below a climber, usually referring to a great distance a climber is above the ground or large ledge, or the psychological sense of this distance due to being unprotected, or because the rock angles away due to climbing an arête or overhang. Exposure can also refer to exposure to the elements, like wind, snow, or sun.</p><p> <i>“What d’you think of the Boys?” she asks of Cheedo who has at least some sense of caution to her but it’s their flame-haired sister who answers.</i></p><p> <i>“They remind me of Nux,” Capable says quietly, distant eyes focusing back to them, “Something of their quietness.”</i></p><p> <i>“They’ve failed their god,” the Dag observes, “and they don’t understand how.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Exposure

Ace jolted awake when the door opened. It was morning, judging by the light coming from the window opening. Not that he’d exactly slept a lot - between his own shortness of breath and Furiosa’s escalating fever, there had been snatches of sleep at best.

The early morning light showed three women in the doorway. The eldest had her hair in two long grey cords, and she was dressed much like the Organi— the healer, including the rifle slung across her back. Ace pushed himself upright, watching her warily as she inspected them all with a careful eye. Then she nodded at him.

“I’m Janey. Gale said you were taking care of our girl there.”

Ace nodded cautiously, his automatic defensiveness easing at the acknowledgement.

“Do you think we could talk with her a while?”

Ace looked over the other women. The second was soft and brown, with her hair braided into cords against her scalp. She had a body of plenty, dressed in soft wrappings, and a very young baby nestled in a sling against her. Ace had only seen the milking mothers once, from a distance, but he thought she must have been one of them.  

The other was younger, with a smoothness of face that said she’d not spent a lot of time in the elements. A Wife, then, though he supposed with Joe dead none of them weren’t any longer anybody’s wife. She had long black hair and looked vaguely familiar - he suddenly remembered her being with the dagger woman when they got him from the Organic's ledge. Ace realised with a cold feeling that she had to be one of the people the Boss had decided to take with her instead of crew.

He swallowed painfully and stowed that knowledge into a box in the back of his brain, stomping down on the lid to make it shut. The Boss needed him to assist right now. He could deal with the other stuff later.

“Janey…” Furiosa croaked from next to him. Ace was relieved to find her eyes relatively clear. She’d spent half the night crying out for somebody called Katee.

He laboriously moved to lean against the wall, and then helped the Boss upright enough so she could lean against his less-injured side. The milking mother had brought her more milk, which was good because her jaw was definitely not up to chewing the mealworm biscuits the rest of them had been given. She drank in short, quick swallows, then needed a while to catch her breath.

The women looked concerned about how long it took, and Ace had to fight the urge to fuss over her, himself. The elder then offered her a warmed canteen, _a tea to wake you up a bit_ , which Furiosa smelled with caution.

"You had some yesterday, before we arrived here," the woman said, and Furiosa drank it then, if with pauses and a grimace.

The women sat down to form a little circle and Ace wondered if they’d meant to include him or if it just happened because he was propping up the boss. But before he could wonder more the woman spoke—

"I am Janey," the older woman said, glancing to him, so apparently he's not just here as support even though her eyes were mostly for Furiosa.

"Mellie," the one with the baby mentioned, her gaze full of a certain easing suspicion as she took him in.

"Cheedo," the third introduced herself.

"Ace," he replied. "These," he gestured to the sleeping figures behind him, "are Kompass and Rachet. Crew." _Trusted, as much as you trust me._

"Fury, are you with us?" Janey asked.

The Boss made a weak gesture that meant 'I'm listening'.

“We think we’ve got the place mostly secure for the moment, but there’s a lot of stuff needs sorting out,” Janey began, unslinging her rifle and reaching, placing it against the wall. It was within reach of both herself and Ace. When he looked at her she nodded back and he found himself settling a little.

“And we’re leaning on people with loyalties we can’t be sure of,” Cheedo added.

“We're assisting as best we can," Mellie said, rocking the baby idly, looking at it occasionally with fond amazement even as her jaw firms, "Joe discussed a lot of things in front of us that he thought we'd never understood.”

Furiosa made a gesture for them to tell her, and they began listing names and responsibilities. The Boss hummed a yea or nay, or nudged Ace with her elbow for his opinion, which it seemed she increasingly did as her breaths started getting more reedy.

At the 20th name however, he couldn't hold back and wait for her request. Not given what little he knew of how Furiosa fought them right after arriving.

“He’s one of Corpus’ men,” Ace said, blew out a breath when this news seemed to shock the women. “Maybe a spy then, or simply shifting to th' winds. What’s Corpus doing?”

He hadn’t been quite sure he had the right to speak, but Janey responded as if he did, after exchanging a glance with the women around her.  

“After we’d established control of Joe’s Throne Room, he’d backpedaled quick. Said he hated his father. Offered us knowledge about the logistics and trade of the Citadel.”

“Doing what he needs to… to stay alive,” Furiosa corrected at a whisper. She had to keep stopping to draw breath. “He’s waiting… for the returning,” she gestured vaguely to the outer wall, and Ace wondered how many of those who had gone out would return. From what he’d heard they would have to go around the mountains. “Don’t give him,” she coughed painfully, and Ace winced at the spasms he could feel go through her. “access to… signals.. lookouts…”

“Or any of his people,” Ace added. "Ask me, if you have any concerns."

Furiosa nodded in agreement. She sagged against his side, and he looked at Janey, checking that she’d seen it. Rachet was blinking awake, and Kompass was already clear eyed shifting into a sitting position, woken since the coughing started. The second grabbed a canteen near the edge of the mattress and unscrewed it while shifting over to Ace, offering the Boss the bottle. Ace saw the women watching and hunched up his shoulder despite himself, turning them both towards Kompass, a little awkward from their gaze.

“That’s enough to go on,” the older woman decided. “Rest up Furiosa, and I’ll see that Gale comes round in a bit.  We’ve got it for now, but we’re gonna need you in a day or twelve.”

“Boss, you want we should send Rachet with them?” Ace suggested. "He can make sure people are who they say they are."

Furiosa’s eyes were glassy, but she made an affirmative hum.

“I’ll go too,” Kompass said, struggling to stand, arm still held awkwardly in a sling. “We can help, Boss. Let us?”

Ace waved his second onwards and left him to it. Kompass was far more mobile than Ace was, and they really needed all the experience they could muster.

 

* * *

 

Kompass and Rachet followed the women to where they'd set up command, staring wide-eyed at the grandness of the pump room. All that Aqua Cola! It made more sense now, how the Immortan had been so generous with the Wretched. The War Boys had counted themselves favoured with a bucket of Aqua Cola to share between the entire crew.

Rachet trailed to a halt when seeing the big opening on one side of the room, the big rock teeth. This was the ledge with the skull face.

 _The Immortan stood there_. Some instinctive sense of trespass yawned before Kompass and it set him on edge. Rachet was already hanging back a little, looking uncertain, and Cheedo hung back as well, speaking briefly to a War Pup who nodded and dashed away.

Kompass grit his teeth and followed the other women to a large circle of makeshift seats. There were seven people there, some of which he'd encountered the first time he'd seen the Boss again.

"—first things is to construct a pipe to lead the water from the spouts instead of just droppin' it," a woman was saying. "Ridiculous to be wasting it all to the wind and dust. If we have a basin down there, we can fill it up when needed and the people down there will always have water."

Kompass stared, caught himself and blinked. He'd thought Mellie looked chrome, all soft and lush, but this woman was - large, with softness in her arms, her chest, her hips - she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He wondered what it'd be like to be held by arms as soft as hers.

"I'd like to knock down those ugly-ass teeth first," Miss Gale said, gesturing to the opening to the outside. "Before we build anything down there for them to break on their way down. Then we'll plant some creepers, cover the whole damn thing."

"There is a team of Repair Boys," a young woman with flame hair said. "They can build the pipe? At least I think they can.”

“Just don't know if we can trust them," another with a harder face shot back.

"Everyone," Janey interrupted, and every face swiveled towards them as Kompass’ fingers twitch towards his belt, "This is Kompass and Rachet. They can help us figure out who’s trustworthy. Furiosa vouches for them."

"Britt," the plush woman introduced herself, like Kompass was here to join their discussion. Mellie pushed herself a space in the circle and bought the tiny pup up between them, a flurry of coo’s and low murmurs proceeding as both women bent their heads towards the small body.

"Capable." The young woman with the flame hair.  Rachet edged into the room out of curiosity, approaching slowly, eyes mostly skimming across the chairs, the decorations, the remnants of Immortan that had been in that room.

"I'm Dag." He remembered the knife-like woman from when she'd brought them Ace, Janey took a seat by her.

"Cookie," the only man said, a familiar face from the food distro.

"Deka," said a woman with a slanted face, one half of her body seemingly immobile. Kompass thought she was one of the Wretched.

"You've met me," Miss Gale said, then turned to the others. "They've been looking after Furiosa."

“Toast,” the shortest one said sharply and launched directly into an attack, "Been wondering about that, actually. She's… all right with having these guys in her room…?" Toast said slowly, as if trying the words. She turned to the dagger. "She strike you as the type to be all right with having a bunch of guys in her space? Especially when she's injured?"

"How would you know?" Rachet broke in, clearly listening after all, "How well do you know her?”

Kompass watched their faces, turned instantly hard and doubtful, and he settled his weight forward on the balls of his feet in response. These were the breeders for whom Furiosa shed her crew. He wonders at their worth, what they might have said to Furiosa to be more worthy than the many hundreds of days that the crew had been loyal to her. Kompass wished Furiosa had said something about staging a coup. He still finds himself uneasy out of habitual respect for the Immortan, but had the two been placed before him and a lance about to land, he knows whom he would dive to save.

(And it wasn’t the Immortan Joe, he admitted in the secret of his mind.)

“We've been lookin' after the Boss for _years_. That's what crew _does_." Rachet continued, but the younger women’s gazes were still searching.

He was getting the uneasy sense they were looking for something, like he was out of place, like this was a dune they suspected had salvage in it somewhere, but he couldn't quite figure out what they thought they might find.

"A crew always looks after their Imperator like this? In their room?" Capable said softly.

"Exactly what kind of 'looking after' are we _talking_ about here," Dag said, knife sharp.    

Kompass gave Rachet a warning look not to talk about Comfort and Being Useful, because he was suddenly not sure if the women were still being protective of Furiosa or if they were… suspicious? Of… of _her_? Of her inviting her crew to her quarters for Use? Was that what was happening? Even after the Boss had sacrificed so much to oust the Immortan Joe and so clearly had put them in power, they'd question her like this? He wished he was better with fancy words, maybe then he could make them understand.

"We _want_ to. _She wants_ us to. I don't understand the _problem_ ," Rachet said plaintively, clearly not catching his look, but for whatever reason it worked and the women relaxed a little.

“She’d asked for Ace,” Cheedo finally spoke up, and walks from the doorway to sit by the Dag. Her voice holds no little amount of caution and maybe surprise, “Seems to rest better with them near.”

“Mellie agrees with that,” Britt raised her voice as well, arms bouncing with the tiny pup transferred over, elbowing the milker next to her a little.

Mellie jumped a little at the prompting elbow, and cleared her throat, “She looked at ease, with them caring for her. Y'can’t fake that.”

"Well, I think that's obvious enough," Janey broke in. "Now, we've got defence measures to discuss and then food and water logistics after that; the numbers are not adding up, someone’s skimming off the top. Gale, Furiosa looked like she could use some of your tea."

"I'll go soon as we're done here," Gale nodded.

The tension broke as those named Toast and Capable looked at each other, as Cheedo met their gaze in turn and clutched at Dag’s hand and something was exchanged silently. They all sat back like they hadn't realized they were balanced forward and Kompass felt something turn over in his lungs, letting him breathe more freely, letting him settle on his heels.

Kompass did not expect support from that Cheedo or the milker, speaking up for them like crew. He was not even quite sure what in all that conversation measured for acceptance; neither he nor Rachet had proved their worth or their strength or any sort of usefulness yet to what they’ve been discussing.

Janey gestured for Kompass and Rachet to take a seat in the circle, and began to draw on the rock floor inside the circle in charcoal.

 _The Citadel,_ Kompass thought as he settled in _, and its defenses_. This, at least, he was familiar with, even if being asked for his opinion in a council was new and not a little intimidating.

 

* * *

 

Toast chews at her pick as she watched the men leave, the ones named Kompass and Rachet, and doesn’t know where in the spectrum of ally they quite fall. They seemed oddly subdued compared to the usual run of War Boys, even those they’ve found after they returned to the Citadel bearing old Joe’s dead body, but she can’t quite figure why they’d help so readily. She doesn’t yet know their stakes, what they value.

“What d’you think of the Boys?” she asks of Cheedo who has at least some sense of caution to her but it’s their flame-haired sister who answers.

“They remind me of Nux,” Capable says quietly, distant eyes focusing back to them, “Something of their quietness.”

“They’ve failed their god,” the Dag observes, “and they don’t understand how.”

“Well _I_ don’t understand how either, they’d had no contact with old Joe, had no hand in his death, came straight to the Citadel from the sandstorms. Or have the War Pups given more news?”

Cheedo shakes her head, “Their stories are consistent. All three came back with injuries, the older War Boy with the most, Ace? The one staying with Furiosa.”

“And the other two?” Toast presses.

She cast her eyes to the side, “The pups at the infirmary, they said the other two left quick. Disappeared up the rock face…” Cheedo bites her lips in thought, and pushes forward, “the pups say there’s hidden spaces there, in the crevices or behind some of the hanging gardens, that you can get to only if you’re strong.”

“Hidden—!” “Hanging gardens?!”

Cheedo answers Dag’s question first, “The ones off the side of the Citadel, apparently there’s no stairs to them from the inside, you can only get there by climbing.”

“And the water?” the blond persists.

“Runoff, from the terraces above them—”

“Go back to the hidden spaces,” Toast interrupts insistently, “We’re going to have to talk about this, why didn’t those War Boys bring it up in the meeting when we talked about the Citadel’s defenses? They could still be loyal to their ‘Redeemer God’, making plans where we don’t see.”

"While they're nursing Furiosa back to health? That doesn't make sense. If they were still loyal to Joe, they'd kill her, not take care of her."

“Maybe it doesn’t _matter_ to the defense,” Capable brings up. “Maybe they just wanted a safe place to recover.”

“Not everyone is like _Nux_ , you know that right?” Her sister had found the War Boy when she was supposed to have been keeping watch, and yes he did prove reliable, but the fact that Capable was just so quick to trust puts up Toast’s guard.

“ _Stop_.” Cheedo raises her voice before Capable opens her mouth to escalate, “Toast, I’m already having her crew followed. The pups have been ready even before they’ve left the room.”

Toast nods, sitting back; at least more than one of them was thinking critically.

“And Capable,” here Cheedo’s voice softens, “I saw them in the room with her, they... I think you and Dag are right, they’ve lost something.”

“Well they lost old Joe,” she scoffs.

“They’d be real angry with Furiosa if that was the case, than all tired-looking, they know she killed him.”

Toast lets that work through her mind as Capable sits back as well, as the four of them stare at each other and wish for a fifth.

“Angharad needs to be here,” the Dag says what all of them were thinking, eyes sharpening, “So _make_ her be here, what would she say?”

That _they were not things_ , Toasts thinks, with a deep well of sarcasm and grief that feels like anger and dismissiveness and everything ugly, _that they were_ —

She straightens.

“—Crew.” She says. “Furiosa left with nineteen on her crew.” Toast knows this, prides herself on her knowing. “They are three left.”

“They’re… they’re kamakrazee War Boys though,” Cheedo suggests half-heartedly. "Their mates have gone to Valhalla. Do they still grieve? The pups say the War Rig team was the shinest, they'd been together and with Furiosa a long time."

"They must have had bonds," Capable says, "friendships."

 _And she betrayed them for us_ , was the unspoken thought hanging in the air. They had heard these men, while the five of them had been tucked away in the rig. Heard them clomp around the War Rig, heard their cheerful banter, their calls to each other, their chanting. It hadn't been a side they'd even known of War Boys, surprising and confirming their ideas in equal turns. Underneath their paint, they'd been more human than the women had known.  

Then they had heard the fighting, the explosions, the screams.

The dying and the cheers Witnessing it.

"Do we really think she's safe with them…?" Toast asks.

"I don't know that I understand it," Janey said thoughtfully, making all the sisters twitch. They’d forgotten the elder had stayed behind to listen, so easily did she blend with the shadows and the rock, "but the older Boy? He was ready to fight us away from her, if need be. Sick as he is."

"That's because they just don't care about dying."

"He must not be _too_ eager, at his age," the Vuvalini replies.

“I think they’re always still afraid no matter how old, or young, they are,” Capable says, then turning to Toast, "they’re worried their death won't have meaning. Joe gave them a way to feel like it mattered."

“And now that their ‘Immortal’ God’s dead you think they’ve attached themselves to Furiosa to give them that?"

Capable shook her head, helpless. “Yes—Maybe? Maybe they figure she'd give them the best chance to make it meaningful." she sighed, remembering. "I think they also fear just the dying itself. Nux talked… he talked about the nightfevers they all had— do you know he named his tumors?— he says,” she swallows, “ _said_ they draw themselves up like machines, because _they know how to repair machines_.”

“...and they don’t know how to repair themselves,” Toast concludes with a huff.

“Tch!” The Nightingale clicks her tongue, startling them all even further, and pushes away from her shadowed corner, “Don't know about that yet. Must be a reason they all present the same. Been having some thoughts actually, to that damn white paint o’ theirs...”

 

* * *

 

Kompass walks through the Citadel with new eyes, slightly stunned. Rachet chatters about lizards next to him, which he only listens to with half-an-ear and the realization that the younger War Boy doesn’t yet see the shape of it all. But then, the younger lancer doesn’t have the training.

Rachet peels off from Kompass to grab meals for the women still waiting in the Council rooms while Kompass watches in thought. The Ace, the Ace’s second, and the roving lead, were the War Rig’s command staff, tasked with the logistics of keeping the run smooth, before, during, and after; the Ace and the second especially tasked with gauging and guarding the Imperator’s sightlines, while the roving lead covered their blindspots.

On a run, being second meant being placed near the cabin, meant assigning lances and crane duty; off a run it meant gauging new crew from a side angle, meant talking to Storage and supplies and keeping them properly topped off instead of shorted, meant talking the best repair pups onto their crew, and all those other detail-work things that kept the machine running.

The Citadel, Kompass now realizes almost numbly, is such a machine as well and he had watched those in the Council talk supplies and fuelage and manpower in ways both similar and different than he was used to. He’d watched as they talked about repairs and rebuilds and how to best arrange the hands that they had to cover all the places they’d needed. He’d watched this crew of women that Furiosa had decided to take with her, and felt overwhelmed by them and by the scope of the task they were undertaking. A task that felt familiar except for two things. One, the scale of it all, not one Rig but _every_ Rig, not one crew but _every_ crew, and everything that housed every crew and all the workings and people of the towers they lived in. And two?

They were a group of Aces and seconds, but none of them seemed to serve as roving lead.

That role had fell on a War Boy who always moved, nimble with both his role and his physical position, moving from place to place on the War Rig, sometimes driver, sometimes lancer, and throughout the outriders as needed.

Furiosa had established the role after Sprocket had switched positions mid-run, letting his injured Lancer drive so he could take over lancing, seeing the value of flexibility. Sprocket had taken the idea and fanged it to its extremes, never being in one place for long, and expanding it off-runs when it meant following the new crew from the shadows, it meant talking to the Fixer and his ilk when the Storage refuses to give, it meant disengaging war pups from commitments they’d prefer to leave, and all the detail-work that could only occur in the Citadel’s crevices.

Morsov had stepped up after Sprocket sped to Vahalla, and further guarded their Boss from the inevitable internal pushback that came with continued success and rise in power, curbing unfounded rumors and jealousies, and discouraging the occasional chrome-struck devotee who'd follow Furiosa around if he got half the chance.

(They'd jokingly taken to calling Morsov The Roaming Cockblocker, at one point, when a lancer had become particularly persistent. The most beautiful irony of which being that Morsov even stole the guy’s preferred gate to Valhalla.)

Fond memories aside, none of these new leaders even seemed to realize that the Citadel _had_ any crevices, any blindspots, any world that lay beneath its surfaces. He hesitated to bring them up during the Council because you do not speak of the Soundless to those they don’t approve of first, unless you want a soft and early death. And these women of Furiosa’s crew have no idea where the food and water are disappearing to, so clearly they haven’t been introduced before. Kompass wishes he wasn't the one having to make these decisions, but both Furiosa and Ace will be out of commision for at least another couple days.

It can't wait, it is all happening _now_.

War happens in instants, at speed, in blinks, with long periods of wait in-between. Kompass’ neck _itches_ because they are in the middle of an ‘instant’ instead of a ‘wait’, and he feels it like watching a gun being drawn on his Imperator.

He needs to _move_ . He’d needed to be moving _already_. Furiosa’s new crew is moving without him, and worse: without anyone to guard where they can’t see.

Kompass does not want to talk to the Fixer, even less to the Soundless and the ones who move inbetween, but Morsov’s in Vahalla, and someone else needs to take up that position even if he isn't the best suited and even if it felt like giving himself a promotion undeserved. Even if it’s an undertaking the scale of which he can’t even fully wrap his head around.

(He won’t allow anyone to shoot at crew from their blindspots, let alone at his Boss, and he has no choice.)

 

* * *

 

Spring scratched his nose but kept at a distance when the second from Imperator Furiosa’s crew nodded to himself and strode to a door to outside. But instead of hooking himself onto a line, the War Boy catches his fingers onto a nub of rock, and started free climbing over and upwards. It was a direction Spring can’t follow; still a War Pup, he doesn’t have the strength yet to free climb safely, though he’d been working on it on the indoor walls. He hauled Rakt up behind him as he gave the younger War Pup instructions to signal the far tower, see if they can get a better eye on where this War Boy was heading.

 _Miss Cheedo would be very interested in this,_ Spring thought as Rakt ran off to the signals. He hung out the door as far as he could and tracked Kompass’ position, pointing so that the Pup across the way can more quickly follow the War Boy with their binoculars.

 

* * * 

 

Furiosa's quarters grew quiet as the women all left after the mini-Council, and, clearly exhausted after the conversation, Furiosa slept. Ace wanted to sleep too, but he kept staring at her face, animated by restless fever dreams, and wondering what he had done - or neglected to do - for her not to trust him. He would have helped her, but she’d kept him ignorant of her plans, had all but sacrificed him and the crew to make it out.

As far as she had known, she _had_ sacrificed them - Kompass had told him how shocked she’d been to see any of them.

 _Was it worth it? Would it have been worth it if you’d found that green place where you were born?_ he wondered.

There was a knock on the door, and the healer Gale came in. She had a basket of supplies with her.

“How are things here?”

Ace brushed his hand over the Boss’ forehead.

“Feverish.”

“Mm, yes. I’ve got something might help with that, but let’s have a look at her wounds first.”

The healer kneeled down at the Boss’ side of the mattress and felt her heartbeat, counted her breaths.

Furiosa stirred. “...Katee?”

“No, my chick,” the healer said, cupping her face, and she suddenly looked very sad. “It’s Gale. Can I look at your wounds? I need to change the dressing. Ace is here too.”

“Mm.”

Ace idly wondered if she had meant that last as reassurance or as heads-up. Maybe both.

The wounds didn’t look as terrible as he had feared, but the edges were puffy and reddened. The healer put something mushy and green-smelling onto them and wrapped them back up. Then she lifted the Boss’ head and fed her sips of something brown-green from a small glass bottle. It tasted bad, judging by Furiosa’s grimace and weak protest. She got some Aqua-Cola to wash it down.

“She can have the other half of this tonight,” Gale said, showing Ace the little bottle. “And as much milk and water as she’ll have. Don’t ration it, send to the pump room for more.”

Ace nodded, and she came over to his side of the mattress.

“Now you, yeah?”

He cautiously lay back so she could listen to his lungs with a listening thing he recognised from the Organic Mechanic, and he tried to breathe as well as he could, which still wasn’t great. After a minute she leaned in a little closer, and he realised she was looking at his neck.

“Can I?”

He would never get used to an Organic— no, a _healer—_  asking for permission to touch. Nodded.

She had hard, calloused hands, but she was careful as she probed the lumps in his neck.

“This bother you much?”

He blinked at her.

“Compresses your windpipe from the sound of it. Anybody ever try removing them?”

“.... _why?_ ”

She looked at him like she didn’t understand the question.

“...why _bother_ ,” he clarified.

“Well, experienced fella like you, why’d we want you to go to the Mothers sooner’n you had to? Y’ain’t that old, even, I reckon.”

“‘bout fourteen thousand days,” he said automatically, letting the rest of her comment float past him. He was only a few years older than the Boss, though he knew he looked much older than a full life would have at his age. Ancient for a half-life, but half life wasn’t exactly specific anyway. You had boys, barely more than pups, flaming out before they’d seen their first action, then you had the ones who developed slow tumors with barely any fevers, like him. Most warboys didn’t live beyond ten, eleven thousand days at most, but that was because that’s when they went to Valhalla. Some of them were burning out by then, but not nearly all of them. Sprocket hadn't been, he'd barely even had tumours. No telling how long he might have lived.

“Well,” Gale said, getting to her feet, “we’ve got the equipment now. Could give it a try once things settle down here. Reckon I could make you breathe easier, at least.”

Ace stared after her when she left.

“You should think about it,” Furiosa said softly from next to him, and he looked to find her relatively clear-eyed.

“Maybe,” he said noncommittally. He felt her forehead, which seemed a little cooler. That stuff Gale had given her must be working.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So we had roving Morsov as a thing but little did we know that [it was](http://schwarmerei1.tumblr.com/post/126792410184/redshoesnblueskies-flamethrowing-hurdy-gurdy) a [Thing](http://bonehandledknife.tumblr.com/post/126777949340/hellofangirlparadiseblog-slicapito-lies-m). Fandom is too psychic and reading our fic from their brains I swear. 
> 
> [Morsov totally stole Slit's ride to Vahalla](http://bonehandledknife.tumblr.com/post/125106171541/portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-war-boy).
> 
> Also Deka is not The Desperate Woman. And our tumblr handles are the same as our author names, feel free to follow if you want to watch us randomly yelling at each other on your dash.


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